Pennsylvania 12

Yesterday's election doesn't bode well for the current power holders in Washington.

Conventional wisdom is settling. Tuesday night was a bad night for the establishment, a bad night for Republicans, and a relatively good night for Democrats. The results, we are told, should make strategists and political analysts reevaluate the growing sense that Republicans are poised to do very well in November. White House political adviser David Axelrod is calling it a "good night" for Democrats.

Really? The vote was certainly anti-establishment. But let's pause for a moment before we accept claims that the vote was anti-incumbent, not anti-big government.

In the Pennsylvania Senate primary, an articulate former Navy admiral defeats the White House-backed candidate -- a former big-government Republican that Pennsylvania Democrats had voted against for 30 years and who acknowledged switching parties was a political move to extend his career. (Public Policy Polling showed Specter winning among liberals and losing badly among conservative Democrats.)

In Kentucky, a Republican that embraced the Tea Party movement -- you know, those fringe, almost-militia racists that were going to divide Republicans -- won a landslide victory over a candidate who defended earmarks and lashed out at Fox News in the campaign's final days.

In Arkansas, the two front-running Democrats will go to a runoff because of the surprisingly strong showing of a third Democrat, D. C. Morrison, a conservative who argued for replacing the income tax with a national sales tax.

And in the Pennsylvania 12 special election, the Republican lost to a Democrat who wouldn't commit to voting for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and ran opposed to Obamacare, the White House's signature domestic policy agenda item -- and all of this in a district that has a elected a Democrat to this seat for decades, the winning candidate's boss.

So anti-establishment? Certainly. But there's much more here -- very little of it is good for supporters of big government.

According to Public Policy Polling, it appears that the race to fill John Murtha's House seat on Tuesday may come down to a photo finish. In the Democratic firm's final poll of the race, Republican Tim Burns and Democrat Mark Critz are neck and neck: 48% to 47%.

One sign that Burns has the edge: "among voters who say they're 'very excited' to vote in this election, Burns has a 60-38 lead." And Burns has a net favorability of +8 while Critz's net favorability is -6.

At last night's debate for Pennsylvania's special election to fill John Murtha's seat, Republican candidate Tim Burns concluded his opening remarks with a push for repeal of Obamacare. His remarks, echoing his new campaign ad on repeal, could easily be the script used by Republicans across the country this fall. The choice voters face, said Burns, is sending someone to Washington who supports "Nancy Pelosi's health care bill and someone who will go to Washington and fight to repeal it."

Johnstown, Pa. In the special election to fill the late John Murtha’s House seat, Republican businessman Tim Burns and Rep. Murtha’s director of economic development Mark Critz, the Democratic candidate, debated tonight in a high school auditorium in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The debate, moderated by a local TV station and newspaper, was lively, and the candidates seemed well-matched.

As Pennsylvania 12 goes . . .

Special elections are a harbinger of November.

The first signs that the Republicans were in for a terrible November in 1974 came in February of that year. Pennsylvania’s 12th District, nestled in the Appalachian Mountains of West Central Pennsylvania, had elected a Republican to Congress in every election for a century except in the very worst Republican years: 1922, 1934, and 1948. In 1972, it had reelected its 12-term congressman, John P. Saylor, with 68 percent of the vote.

If Florida 19 was a referendum on health care, what about HI-1 and PA-12?

At a Democratic fundraiser yesterday, President Obama mocked the Tea Party and downplayed opposition to his health care bill. The president said that conservatives and Republicans had called Tuesday's election to replace retiring Representative Robert Wexler, Democrat of Florida, a "referendum" on the health bill. Democrat Ted Deutsch won. "Maybe it was" a referendum, the president said.